Rob Owen

David Zurawik

In all but one or two cases, if I were seated with one of these people on a plane, I'd ask to be moved next to a crying baby or a drunk. What CBS has done here is cast this house with people who resemble the stock types we have come to know from prime-time sitcoms and dramas for 50 years. [6 Jul 2000]

Matthew Gilbert

So far, and that's an important qualification, watching "Big Brother" is only slightly more exciting than watching a drugstore surveillance tape. One week in, CBS's five-nights-a-week series remains slow, self-conscious, and visually sterile. [13 Jul 2000]

Laura Fries

"Big Brother" debuted Wednesday night with all of the style and drama of a Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol commercial. ... Five days a week of people in a cramped house full of Ikea furniture is like a bad college flashback. [10 Jul 2000]

David Bianculli

Verne Gay

Airing five nights a week and featuring 10 strangers - not to mention insufferable hosts Julie Chen and Ian O'Malley - this will fill our screens for the next three months. Unless we happen to leave the set turned off. Which, judging from last night, might be advisable. [6 Jul 2000]

Tim Kiska

Joel Brown

'Big Brother' ... is such a demeaning, depressing exercise that everyone involved ought to be lashed to one of the Pentagon's defective 'Star Wars' missiles and rocketed out over the Pacific, never to be heard from again, except by the sharks. [2 Aug 2000]